How to Secure Your Webcam at Home From Online Snoops

5 min

You have probably never thought about it seriously, and was probably never warned! Fact is, you need to secure your webcam at home to avoid being hacked by someone online. Webcam hacks have become a favorite pastime for snoopers who unashamedly peek into your private lives and share their findings with the world.

The exploit has spread to smartphone and tablet front-facing cameras, and the whole array of Internet of Things! Drones too are not spared. It gets worse now that CCTV and IP cameras are installed in multiple homes, and connected to the Internet!

A simple search of ‘view private webcam’ or visiting Insecam or opentopia can give you a pretty good idea of what is happening. Live coverage of people’s homes is viewable online, all for free!

How Webcam Hacking Works

For anyone to access your smartphone or computer camera, he
or she must be able to install a back-door or rootkit software on your computer
using a Trojan horse. Upon execution of the malicious file, your IP address
will be relayed back to the online criminal.

In what is known as camfecting, a Trojan execution file will be shown to you as a cool tool to help you solve a problem on your computer. Then it will install client hack tools and shell command capabilities and amongst many trickeries, will monitor hardware and computer keystrokes.

Then with the help of remote administration Trojan (RAT) application, your computing devices can be manipulated without you ever suspecting. Your storage media, web activities, microphone and webcam are turned into ‘slaves’.

A Trojan will manifest as:

antivirus or other malware software

friendly mail or pdf file

network link

smartphone app

notification

etc

The inadvertent installation of Trojan files in your computer will give direct access of your tech device to the remote hacker, who upon firing up remote administration tools will monitor and tweak hardware and software on your personal computer or other devices.

Below are some examples of remote administration exploit tools:

Blackshades Remote access Trojan

Metasploit

DarkComet

SubSeven

Back Orifice

Lost Door Remote Administration

Skype Webcam Hacker

AndroRAT for Android

Besides installing trojans, hackers also use sophisticated online tools and brute-force attacks to access IP cameras connected to the internet. So, every time you are monitoring your home from your camera in the office, you probably have someone alongside you surfing through the videos. Beware!

You can secure your webcam at home with the following tricks

Whereas you have no control over government security webcam
installations, live cams and hobbyist webcams that are streamed online, you
should have a degree of control over what is harvested from your house.

2. Install and Update Security and Other Software

Good anti-malware software will throw up red flags whenever
Trojans try to download and install.

To complement this, allow the security software to remove
malware immediately and exercise caution when including apps in the Exception
list. Adding

Trojan files in antivirus exception list will leave your
computer open to all kinds of remote attacks.

Further still, get into the habit of running whole computer scans regularly. This way, the security scan will pick up hidden rootkits and backdoor threats that went unnoticed in previous scans, probably because of outdated virus definitions.

Update other applications such as java.

3. Keep an Eye on Webcam Light

Usually, the webcam light will turn on whenever the laptop
webcam is in use. This alerts you the camera is rolling, and someone is
watching you.

If the light turns on without you using the application,
then, some remote script could be running in the background. Check to make sure
you did not start the software accidentally and that you are not being watched!

However, you should not solely rely on the cam light to
sense trouble. Some Webcams don’t light up either because the camera light has
malfunctioned or the remote script has disabled it. Again, many smartphone cams
do not have lights thus giving the hacker a leeway.

In 2013, successful exploits managed to turn on MacBook
laptop webcams without triggering its lights! Make sure to close the lid or
completely turn off the laptop if you are not using it.

4. Cover the Webcam

You will want to secure your webcam by covering it until
such a time you will need it. Cover the webcam using a post-it note or sticky
tape but remember not to mess it up by using excessive adhesive.

Of course, the recourse changes when it comes to your
smartphone. With the selfie craze all around us, you may want to have your
front facing camera on at all times. For mobiles, therefore, make use of other
preventive measures explained herein.

5. Disable the Webcam

Disable the webcam device in Device Manager if you are not using it

You should also consider disabling the webcam in your computer
if you are not going to use it. Apart from the usual video chats via Skype and
other tools, webcams are utterly useless when it comes to taking photos.

If you do not rely on your laptop for communication,
consider disabling the webcam completely. For Windows users, this can be done
in Device Manager or the BIOS setup page.

Right-click the laptop webcam under Imaging devices and
select Disable.

6. Use Secure Passwords

All computers and mobile devices in your household should be
secured with passwords. In addition, set them to request for passwords whenever
they wake up from Sleep or Hibernation. This may help against exploits which
are targeted at idle devices.

Secure passwords should also be the ultimate solution if you have installed CCTV and IP cameras and network devices. Ensure to change the default passwords that ship with the devices.

Secure your CCTV camera

8 character or longer password comprising upper- and
lower-case letters, symbols and numbers should help dissuade hackers from
exploiting your installations. Long passwords are harder to guess.

Improve overall home security by changing your passwords every
once in a while, and making sure they are well encrypted. You don’t want to be
smoked out at the storage level.

7. Don’t Jailbreak or Root your Smartphone

Do not jailbreak or root your smartphone to avoid hacking

Apple endeavors to improve user security in every version of
new IOS firmware. But this security is easily breached when you choose to
jailbreak your iPhone.

When you jailbreak an iPhone or root an Android device, you basically interfere with security checks and limitations that are written within the firmware.

A jailbroken iPhone allows good and evil third-party apps
other than those sanctioned by Apple to install and run.

Xsser mRAT, PlaceRaider, AndroRAT are just a few examples of
remote access exploits that can run on jailbroken and rooted Android devices
while transmitting phone contents and images to remote users.

In order to secure your Apple device, do not jailbreak it
and always update to the latest firmware. For Android users, install and run
trusted anti-malware apps while watching out for malware apps!